The monsters
The first monster was an anthropomorphic bird
(or ornithoid man)
called the Bird King.
He belched a cloud of
gas,
which became the sky.
The second monster
was Medusa,
the gorgon.
She hissed sweet
nothings
that became the sea,
then turned the flesh
of time
to stone:
the earth.
The third monster was
Satan.
He gathered the fire
from his belly and
heart,
rolled it into a ball
and hurled it into the sky.
The sun was born.
The fourth monster
was Grendel.
He squatted over the
newborn world
and shat out a black
lake,
fizzing with the
first microbes.
Life had begun.
The fifth monster
named itself Man.
The sixth monster was
Language.
Man wrestled with it,
struggling for
mastery.
Every time he crushed
a word,
two neologisms grew
in its place.
The seventh monster
was
the Sphinx.
Her claws
gouged the earth,
tore out
its stone heart: the
moon.
She cast it into
space,
among dead stars.
The eighth monster
was Tezcatlipoca.
He appeared to people
in dreams and
in mirrors,
blank eyes
inciting
murder.
The ninth monster was
Marilyn
Manson.
He put the animals into a
trance,
rewired their DNA,
then set them loose,
competing, mutating,
restless.
The tenth monster was
Insomnia, a grey, blear-eyed beast.
Hasty needles in a
haze of veins,
caffeine fix making
its madness,
coffee-coughing.
The eleventh monster
was $ycorax.
Landing on a
sunblasted island,
she spawned,
colonised,
peddled words and
spices
to hapless natives.
The twelfth monster
was the
Minotaur,
bellowing
through the tangled
nocturnal city,
writing his anguish
in neon
over
dark entrances.
The thirteenth
monster was the Beast.
Its heart,
a combustion engine,
thundered
as it manufactured
machines
to shred space:
boats, cars, planes.
The fourteenth
monster
was
the Mermaid.
Octopus ink hair billowing,
coral arms,
pearl eyes.
Ophelia of the
oceans,
she sang her drowning song.
The fifteenth monster
was Leviathan.
It surged up from the
black seabed and floated,
coil upon coil,
exposed, pink,
its hot
soft
mouth opening.
The sixteenth monster
was the Harpy,
gyrating on a redlit
platform.
Punters' fingers
reached for meat.
Her feather boa
snaked to the floor.
The seventeenth
monster was Mammon.
The world was his
poker table.
He gathered the
chips,
piled them high
into skyscrapers.
Tiny people looked
up.
The eighteenth
monster was the Doll.
Knees clacking,
dead head lolling,
blank androgyny.
It blundered through
houses, smashing their inhabitants.
The nineteenth
monster was the
Clockwork Toy.
Whirring and wheeling,
it hunted children
under a bronze moon.
Coiled
in its gaudy box:
deadeye Jack.
The twentieth monster
was Memory.
Taunting,
spectral,
through the mind's
maze,
never letting herself
get
caught.
The final monster
is
your
imaginary
friend.
Look into the mirror.
He's hiding behind
that door,
waiting for you to
sleep.
Words and image by James Knight. You can buy his wonderful books and e-books here.